Seoul, South Korea: Soul to Seoul, a bloggers journal 2008

Graham Reid | Jun 13, 2008 | 19 min read

Because I always travel cheap I usually forget that
not everyone does. Sure I've stayed in some of the world's most luxurious and
most private hotels -- but that's what happens unfortunately when you win travel
writing awards sponsored by the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group and they
insist on putting you up in their exotic and exclusive digs. (see tag)

But mostly I end up in places where a mosquito coil
seems like an extravagence and "mini-bar" means that bottle-shop two doors down
below the brothel.

On my trip to Seoul -- I write this from the
business centre of the Hyatt Grand where my 12th floor room has a sweeping view
of the Hangang (Han River) -- has been a very different experience right from
the start.

I have only twice been in that comfy part of the
plane behind the pilot -- once because I arrived just as they were closing the
door and said "sit anywhere". So I turned left and enjoyed a lazyboy settee for
five hours across America. (Good tip folks.)

So as usual at Mangere Airport in Auckland I
glanced at my Korean Air ticket (seat 9D) and just waited to be among the last
called because they load from the rear. When I got on I realised I was actually
among the first beckoned: those who need assistance or have young children, or
those who are really really rich (or the company's paying) and ride in
comfort.

And there I was (thank you Korean Air) among the
latter, just me and some Korean men and their wives who read the business
sections of whatever all those papers were. The
menu came, the meal deserved to be photographed (I would on the return flight,
see below) and I scanned the channels. I clicked on to a Steve Carrell movie -- Dan in Real
Life, not much cop -- and the first words I heard were a woman saying, "my
perfect day would start with me going to country where people speak a language I
don't know . . . ." Or words to that effect.

That is what I love about travel: those strange and
sometimes welcome disjunctions, odd coincidences and the unexpected. She could
have been speaking for me.

Later I flicked around and saw something alarming on
the news channel about North Korea and nuclear issues, and a major story about
mad cow disease fears in ROK (Republic of Korea, the south where I was headed)
and how infected beef may be being imported from the US.

Then I saw Will Smith as the sole survivor of some
holocaust (mad cow disease? nuclear war?) and living alone in New York.
Another strange disjunction.

Seoul of course was far from deserted when I arrived
from Incheon in the rain and darkness. People were scurrying into restaurants
(why do restaurants in homogeneous Korea advertise themselves as" Korean
restaurant"?) and there seemed to be an astonishing number of families with
young kids in the Hyatt Hotel when I arrived. Some special offer I was told as
happy but well-behaved children ran politely amock in the lobby.

Later I learned I had arrived in a very auspicious
time: it was Childrens Day, a few days later Parents Day, and then Buddha's
birthday celebrations were starting a various temples around the city.

I love Seoul -- have done since I first came here a
decade ago -- and on this, my fourth visit, I have a very full
agenda.

This is a high-wired city (I believe over 90% of
homes have internet and having your own webpage is a big deal here) and
broadband is everywhere. (More on that soon.)

But it is also going somewhere architecturally and
has been named the World Design City 2010. I have interviews about that and am
asking how Seoul will be challanging Shanghai and Beijing in the region with its
innovative urban planning and new architecture.

Seoul is an impressive city (population 10 million
and rising) and visitors cannot help but be struck by dozen after dozen, into
the hundreds, of 10, 20 and 30-storey apartment blocks that ring and penetrate
the city.

They might be unglamorous -- they are, but impressive
by number -- but they do provide housing in this country which, just over 50
years ago, was largely in ashes.

Once I came here with some returning New Zealand
soldiers who had fought in that forgotten war (the one after World War II and
before Vietnam) and many had tears in their eyes when they saw the arcs of
motorways and the highrise development. They remembered the country as
shell-blasted and with nothing over a single storey standing. Barely a stick
standing around here half a century ago.

South Korea's achievements (and yes, they have come
at some social costs and political suppression for a long time) are impressive.
I'm glad to be here asking questions and listening.

I am ready for the task, I pushed one zero too many
at the ATM at the airport and now have 1,000,000 won in my possession (about
$NZ1300 I think) but I don't intend to spend it all in the same shop.

And I do have to shop. A priority today before I go
to various museums, the art gallery down the hill and to see some architecture,
is to buy a couple of snappy shirts.

In my haste to pack notebooks, camera, itinerary and
such I left my neatly pressed dress shirts (thank you darling) hanging on the
bedroom door.

So I am off to get something to impress the
mayor.

Real news will follow regularly. Meantime here I am,
loaded with the folding and ready to step out into a warm clear spring day in
Seoul, capital of the "Land of Morning Calm".

SEOUL SEARCHING

With a good Metro system and useful street signage
(aside from not naming streets), Seoul is an easy city to get your way around in
-- but more fun when you get lost.

That's easy to do too, just come out of a Metro on
the wrong exit and walk a few metres the wrong way and you are suddenly
disorientated and happily lost.

But then another Seoul becomes evident.

As with many Asian cities -- I'm thinking of Tokyo --
Seoul is made up of small districts, 21st century villages if you will, which
retain almost ancient characteristics.

And So although Seoul boasts high rise, public
sculpture (nice Oldenburg, see left), the newly developed river walk (which
might look faux but does follow the old stream, cost squillions and offers an
area of quiet -- except for the families and kids -- and all the other trappings
of a modern city, you also find street stalls selling various kinds of food from
broth to squid kebabs, women on the footpath telling fortunes, and old men
selling those shapeless beige clothes that so many women over 50 seem to take
pride in here.

These villages -- which have local restaurants and
bars, parks where old men play board games and the visible homeless sleep under
the trees, and various churches, temples, 7-11 stores, veggie shops and sellers
of dried fish -- are scattered throughout central Seoul just down alleys or
sidestreets away from the more well walked streets.

The fact these local areas thrive in the face of
development gives Seoul a . . . well, you know how that has to end.

Much of this interesting stuff exists at ground level
and is quite visible. In fact around one of the bigger Buddhist temples I was
tripping over Buddha-detritus and people hawking cheap trinkets to the faithful.

But Seoul also goes up and down: bars, bookshops,
cinemas, hair salons and so on can be five flights up or two floors down. That
makes this city a constant discovery -- and for me rediscovery.

I'm stayin near Itaewon (a very touristy area
currently undergoing a makeover) but got as far away as quickly as possible, and
the Metro was very helpful in that.

I saw a wonderful exhibition of paper art in a
gallery inside one of the stations, took photographs of lots of interesting
buildings (ancient and modern), walked for hours, ate, shopped, got sort of lost
a few times, saw worrying things (I guess we'll get Internet Dating: The
Musical in due course) and thoroughly enjoyed a long day.

Right now Seoul is full of the joys of spring: kids,
blossoms, balloons, face-painting, bands playing, lanes so crowded your walk is
reduced to a slow shuffle . . .

The weather is mild, the sky cloudless and the
mounatins which are suprisingly close and visible from many of the wide roads in
the city centre are a gorgeous pale blue.

I have bought my replacement shirts and some K-pop
and hip-hop CDs, the mango icecream was delicious, and the baseball cap
necessary to keep the sun off my nose which, of course, feels even more
noticeable in this environment.

As does the height, the beard, the hair and the
clumsy pointing to things and stuttering something entirely wrong in a language
which sounds like a threat of serious violence when shouted but seduces like
rippling water when whispered.

My meetings start in earnest after my time of
reorientation and given Seoul is going to undertake some major redevelopment I
guess my job is to ask how much of what I love about this place, those little
alleys into villages thriving in an urban environment, are going to
survive.

I better get dressed up for my busy programme (which
actually has "rest" written at 22.00 hours). I
can't wait.I've even got my shirt picked out.

HISTORIC PRESENT, PRESENT TENSE AND FUTURE
PERFECT

Okay, here's what's going to happen -- and we leave
aside the ifs, buts and maybes for the moment, of which there are a few. But the
future of Seoul will be like this: a modern city which will look like bits of
Dubai (with greenery) will rise alongside the Hangang River and it will be fed
by digital services, incorporate retail and residential, be a business hub for
Asia and of course be eco-friendly.

It will, in short, be as perfect a vision of the
future as you can imagine -- outside of that old movie The Shape of Things To
Come.

Frankly, on paper and in the slideshow presentation I
was treated to yesterday, I was hugely impressed. It does of course have a name:
Dreamhub -- and doesn't that just make your pulse pound?

It will tranform Seoul -- the presentation was full
of slogans such as "A Clean and Attractive Global City" and "The Hangang
Renaissance" -- and the assembled journallists were told it would change Seoul
from "a Hard City into a Soft City".

In slides which showed Rome and London as the hubs of
their empires, Seoul was presented as being prepared to become the centre of the
world and Dreamhub will be its heart.

I have been to such presentations before and
hyperbole and hi-tech data-show presentations are common: but there is something
about the Korean capacity for work (they are the hardest working people on the
planet) and their relentless drive for progress that makes me think that at
least some of this will happen. (In fact some of it already is.)

They don't have much time however and have set
themselves 2020 to get the job done (not to mention the overhaul of various
other parts of the city, the creation of satellite cities and so on). But I
think they will get on with the job. Of course
the whole thing is fraught with economic uncertainty, what happens when civic
leaders change and so forth. There was very little question time -- we were all too stunned by
the images of landmark towers and so on -- but among them will be what happens to the current inhabitants of those
areas, how can this be steered through consecutive metropolitan governments over
the next decade, what happens if the economic bubble bursts (as it has in the
past), and . . .

Okay, here is what Seoul has going in its favour to
realise the planners' dream: the average age is 36.7, this is a plugged-in
society (an average of 1.4 computers per home, 91.8% internet penetration),
digital and design businesses are cornerstones of the country's growth and are
having government and private investment poured into them; Korea has the 7th
fastest economic growth rate in the world, and Seoul itself (population 10
million, 24 million in the greater Seoul area) has only one mayor and three
vice-mayors.

It has the infrastructure, the will, a streamlined
development and planning process -- and it has slogans to inspire: "Centre for
the Future, the Centre of the World" and "We Will Realise These
Goals".

Of course progress comes at a price and some are
rightly concerned that the special nature of this vibrant city -- which I
alluded to previously -- will be lost and buildings of character will be torn
down (that is happening already).

But you have to admit Zaha Hadid's vision for
Dongdaemun Stadium (above) is stunning.And
hers is just one development project among dozens.

After that high-powered briefing it was a delight to
go to the home of the Zen master Soo Bool Sunim for an hour of typically
bewildering discussion and questions ("Can you see your own eyes?")

His home is sort of emblematic of so much of this
city and its odd juxtapositions. He lives in a suburban street and across the
road is a low-rise of brick apartments. Above the traditional roofline of his
home you can see the cross from the Presbyterian church just up the road. Step
out from his quiet garden and rooms and you are in the world of hip restaurants,
wine shops, art galleries and cafes.

I guess none of that collision of life styles,
cultures and attitudes will exist in the new supercity areas of
Seoul?

The master spoke in those questions and riddles that
tickle the mind, and one thing he said really struck home. I asked if there was
such a thing as change, or is everything changeless.

Through the translator there was a convulted answer
which was peppered with other questions and I think maybe even a mild rebuke,
although his shining and beaming demeanour would deny that.

The translator said, "do not be held captive by
words".

The master smiled.

I asked the translator later if he would pass on
something to the master from me, that those words in particular struck me as
important but also very funny: "I am a journalist".

He told the master, and the master's gentle
expression of benign good humour didn't change.

It may be the only thing I've seen in Seoul which
struck me as permanent.

(During a walk along the river development I also
met Robert Koehler, an American who has been a
longtime resident of Korea, these past five or so years in Seoul. He writes the
best blog about contemporary Korea and like me shares a love of architecture.
Check him out here http://www.rjkoehler.com/.)

ENCOUNTER WITH A MASTER MUSICIAN

So did I mention that right next to the Ahnkook Zen
Centre in Seoul is the Seoul Museum of Chicken Art? Or that at the performance
of The Princess Who Fell in Love With B-Boy (a cross-genre dance
production with pounding hip-hop which is going to Broadway in October) that
there were four middle-aged monks behind me in the audience of screaming girls
and air-punching young men?

Or that to get to the home of Professor Hwang -- the
master of the gayageum and who perhaps single-handedly preserved the traditional
music of Korea and has been taking it to the world -- you walk up typically
narrow and unglamourous streets and alleys.

Of course once inside his house you get a spectacular
view over the low and high-rise buiildings of the city, and his upstairs lounge
which is a clutter of papers, shopping baskets of CDs, instruments and documents
feels quite remote from the noise and tawdry chaos outside.

Hwang Byungki is an extraordinary man: when he
first started learning the gayageum (like a zither) in the early 50s his country
was recovering from the Japanese colonial era, the Second World War and the
invasion of North Korea and China down the peninsula.

There was very little information about either
traditional court music or folk music (none or very little of which was written
down) and many of its practitioners had passed on.

"When I began to learn gayageum in 1950," he said,
"only about a dozen new gayageum were being sold each year. Now there are 10,000
a year."

For which the quiet, composed professor should
take credit.

Now there are well-established music departments
teaching traditional music and the sound of the gayageum is so popular that
there has emerged the inevitable fusion movement where the instrument is found
in the context of synthesisers, drums and electric guitars.

The man who has rarely incorporated Western classical
instrumentation with gayageum passes lightly over what he thinks of
that.

What he does say -- and he also said how much he
enjoyed being in New Zealand for a concert some years ago -- is that Korean
music is the least known music from the Orient in the Western world.

That is because the music of Indonesia, Japan, India,
Vietnam and so on filtered back to the West through the colonial powers. Korea's
colonial power was Japan and so the music remains, and to a great extent still
remans, in the East.

To meet this man was one of the highlights of this
visit to Seoul and when I asked for an interview with him -- like a Korean
journalist going to Wellington and asking if they could pop around for a chinwag
with Peter Jackson -- I never expected to meet him.

Much of what I am picking up will of course make its
way at greater length and with more consideration into other media outlets in NZ
and abroad, and today I have a meeting with someone who is going to talk about
the digital art movements here which I have encountered at the Venice Biennale
and elsewhere. If there is one thing Korean artists, and the people in general,
are comfortable with it is technology. They use it in every aspect of their
lives from social networking to reaching out into the world via the
arts.

Today there is also a meeting at our High Commission
which I have requested -- and much more before dinner with the mayor of Seoul.
That's why I packed the jacket.

Righto, off to encounter yet another cultural
collision which I will not only survive but be delighted and informed
by.

MY BRILLIANT KOREA

And so the final days in Seoul went by in a blur:
astonishing digital art and exciting galleries; interviews with an art critic, a
digital artist, a musician and a food writer; dinner with the mayor and a
meeting with our genuinely nice people in our embassy; the helpful and friendly
company of good natured interpreters and hosts; more talk about designers and
architects turning Seoul into the hub of Asia, walks through historic areas and
hip streets, terrific food, buying CDs and DVDs . . .

And most interest perhaps, I went to
OhMyNews, the online newspaper, and spoke with
senior editor Todd Thacker and communications director Jean K. Min. (see tag)

Founded eight years ago, OhMyNews has citizen
journalism at its core, now works out of the 18th floor of the impressive
Nuritkum Business Tower in Mapo-gu about 40 minutes by taxi from central Seoul
(right), and has a code of ethics which all citizen journalists must agree to
and sign.

OMN employs about 90 people in its office (stories
are subbed and fact-checked which is more than you can say for some mainstream
print media these days), and it has its own television studio.

OMN also opened its own journalism school in November
'07 in Incheon where aspiring online journalists of all ages/persuasions and
backgrounds can go for intensive classes in ethics, writing, media literacy,
digital technology and so on.

In many ways, although it is cutting-edge in terms of
its online focus, there is much which is traditional and familiar about the way
OMN operates. But of course it is very different too: copy is created fast and
published with an immediacy, it is liberal and opinionated, relies on citizens
in the frontline rather than media outlets far away, and has a compelling
personality to it.

It is one way into the future of new media
convergence -- and has been there for eight years.

This isn't blogging made big, rather old media
reconfigured to take advantage of the new and divergent media
possibilities.

Coincidentally across town -- and literally in
every part of town -- on the day that I was talking to Min, bloggers were at
work on the issue of beef from the US and whether it was infected by "mad cow
disease".

In the absence of supporting science, bloggers
started posting dire warnings, horror pictures of crazed cows and people
possibly infected, and nightmare scenarios of mass poisoning. In blog-connected
Korea where many tens of thousands of citizens have their own websites and
people blog like you and I buy coffee, the fear took flight.

Two nights later more than 10,000 (mostly young)
people gathered to protest in the centre of the city -- and OMN was there with
portable digital cameras doing interviews.

The beef issue became a lightning rod for all kinds
of disapproval about President Lee Myung-bak: over 1.2 million people signed an
on-line petition to impeach him and his approval rating was the lowest of any
president -- down to Bush-like levels. Opposition parties circled, national
pride was at stake, teachers and students weighed in and joined the protest, and
prosecutors said they were investigating whether legal action could be taken
against those who spread false rumours and fears online.

But rumours spread even more widely -- and some
started suggesting Lee had given the disputed Dokdo Islands in the East Sea to
Japan. Within days 20,000 people had signed an online petition about
that.

As with the mad cow caper, there was very little
evidence (none in the latter case actually) to suggest this was the case -- but
the blogosphere went ballistic. It was like the "Paul is Dead" rumour for those
old enough to remember that one: people were scouring for clues and -- sure
enough -- finding them.

Interesting. Especially when you consider that in the mainstream media a more
interesting and potential much more dangerous story was being broken: that
Seoul's first case of bird flu had been identified in two dead pheasants in an
aviary near the country's largest open market in Seongnam outside
Seoul.

Infected ducks had infected the pheasants, officials
had hastily closed the poultry section. (A
longtime expat resident said, "what with the beef and the birds, dog is starting
look like the best option".)

You can make what you will out of this about
blogging's power to perhaps mislead or create mischief as much as broker
important issues.

A psychology professor at Seoul's Yonsei University
told the JoongAng Daily, the reasons for the online panic which
translated into major protest action was partly cultural in this highly wired
and interconnected country: "Koreans have a tendency to put more importance on
what others think and say than developing their own thoughts and voice. It is
because the authority infrastructure has collapsed and lost credibility among
the general public."

Well, that's a long discussion about cultural and
social mores, how Korea developed as a country over centuries and what happened
to it in the last half of the 20th century, and why Koreans are so enthusiastic
about the online world.

A professor in politics told the same paper, "the
younger generation tends to think of the Internet as a playground that is
distant from reality."

The thing about OhMyNews is that it sees these areas
as acutely interconnected, which is why it has an inbuilt series of checks and
balances (just like some old-time media) and its voice on bird flu was more
measured (although still allowing that there was more to this than bland
assurances coming from various officials).

It was an interesting time to be in Seoul -- but then
again that is always true. It is a wonderful place where odd juxtapositions of
the old and new constantly assail you (right). It is a fascinating city which is
going to be a great one. If the economic bubble doesn't burst.

It is a city in a country full of ambition and a work
ethic. It also has vibrant arts, hot music of all kinds (some of which I bought
to post at Music From Elsewhere), friendly people, an abrasive edge, arcane
politics and history, strong liquor . . .

On reflection, my previous three visits to Seoul had
all been one-dimensional in their own ways. But on this trip -- thanks to Seoul
Selection who put me in touch with many and various people, and provided an
excellent interpreter -- took me to places I wouldn't normally see and opened
doors which would otherwise have remained closed, I saw and felt a lot more
about this vibrant and diverse city.

In my final days I went to the Seoul Selelction
bookshop and went slightly mad buying English-language books on Korean design
and architrecture, history and film, plus some CDs and DVDs that had been
recommended to me by various people, Robert Koehler included (see above).The Seoul Selection
Bookshop (which includes Hank's Cafe -- try the teas) posts internationally and
has a good online site.

On my final morning I took the Metro out to see the
magnificent new W Hotel at Walkerhill and spent an hour just photographing the
exceptional exterior and the stylish lobby with its long bar, spacious and
tiered seating area and DJ console inside an egg-shaped booth.The view across the Hangang River from this point halfway up a
mountain is also spectacular. Check it out here:

Then I went back to Insa-dong and to a funky
museum of oddball toys, old games consoles, movie posters, record players and
radios, bottles, kitsch, trivcia and rubbish. It cost only 1000 won to enter and
everyone in the crowded place was happily snapping away photographs of the stuff
which was piled high everywhere. I don't know Korean for "my mother used to have
one like that" but I think a lot of people were saying it. It was hilarious.

Down the road I bought some gifts and watched yet
another street parade, and then in the late afternoon went to the
airport.

As the plane lifted off, for the first time I had
the opportunity to reflect on how much I had seen and learned.

"A lot" was the simple answer, and also not
enough -- which always provides you with the perfect excuse to go
back.

I want to see how the redevelopment of Seoul
comes into effect, if they can manage to built the new without sacrificing the
old (for those developments I will stay tuned to Robert's site here: http://www.rjkoehler.com/ )

On the flight home I also started to sketch out
stories that I could write out of these five intense days: something about
OhMyNews;
articles of design and digital art; a profile of the great Byungki Hwang for an
American magazine and playing his music on New Zealand's Concert Programme; some
articles about the redevelopment of Seoul and the "Dreamhub" . . .

There was going to be much to do, and those were just
the pieces that occured to me within 10 minutes of take-off.

Korea had got under my skin again and all I wanted
was for the plane to turn around and drop me back in to that fascinating
place.

Then dinner arrived and damned if the herbs on the salmon didn't look like
hangul lettering to me.

If I could just figure out what it was trying to tell
me . . .

Postscript: I think this is funny. A
few days later back in Auckland I went into my Westpac on Queen St to try and
change a hundred thousand or so Korean won into Kiwi money -- and they said they
couldn't do it. I went to the National Bank down the road and they could, but it
would cost me $5. Fair enough. Then the young
woman came back and said actually it would cost $12 because the won was an
"exotic currency" and not one they usually dealt with. I joked that Korea was
our seventh largest trading partner (our PM is there this week) and noted to
myself they had six exchange rates posted, including Canada. While she went off for 10 minutes to do the paperwork (I got
$112 back) I looked at the signage.

Upstairs in this place where my left-over won was
considered an "exotic currency" they had a whole Korean Banking
Division.

This is an edited and expanded version of a series of blogs written for publicaddress.net while in Seoul between May 5 - 10, 2008 where I was a guest of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Selection. I flew Korea Air (my kinda airline).

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